Let us be honest. Most of George Bush’s admirable support — as voiced in his 2005 inaugural address — for freedom abroad was de facto abandoned by 2006-7. Condoleeza Rice had championed Egyptian dissidents, but within a year that advocacy was dropped and we were back to the Mubarak paradigm as usual.

Why? Apparently even talking about a move to consensual government in the Middle East, here and abroad, had raised the specter of another bloody Iraq. “Neocon” was tantamount to child molester in the American parlance. Although the effort to depose Saddam and stay on to help implement democracy — that, in fact, had triggered the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon, the sudden arrest of Dr. Khan in Pakistan, and the surrender of a massive WMD program in Libya — was still alive, it was now mired in the Iraq insurgency of 2006. As domestic opposition grew, as the Republicans lost the House, and as moderate Arab authoritarian regimes sighed relief at the U.S. stasis, realists gained the upper hand. So in the waning days of the Bush presidency, pressuring our friends to evolve was dropped in favor of begging them not to actively oppose our one-time efforts in Iraq.

And whereas Bushites accepted that the liberal opposition at home had demagogued Iraq, they still dreamed on that Democrats would at least support the Bush idea of voicing solidarity elsewhere for dissidents abroad. That too was mistaken. The left saw the end of Bush politically as far more important than expressing any shared support for the president’s liberal agenda overseas. How odd that the right wing was tired of the old Middle East authoritarian shakedown (e.g. “pay up since only I stand between you and the Muslim Brotherhood”) while the left wing was apparently not.

But that said, for five years Bush at least dropped the adage “at least he is our SOB,” and instead almost 24/7 declared that freedom was a transcendent value that all humans aspired to, even in oppressive political and religious climates. Mark him as naïve; remind us that he was in thrall to the dreaded “neocons”; say what you will, but his legacy may still be the end of a murderous Saddam and a constitutional state in the most unlikely place in the heart of the ancient caliphate — a stunning seven-year-long survival of consensual government that continues to ripple out, as we see today.

“I’m not Bush”

Obama was Bush’s antithesis and defined himself as resetting everything that Bush had envisioned, clueless that that meant in Pavlovian fashion opposing all the good that Bush had done as well. He canceled support for Egyptian dissidents. He all but gave a green light for the theocrats to crush the Iranian dissidents. He was harder on Israel than on Syria. He was far more interested in either apologizing for the United States, trashing the Iraq war, or offering fairy stories about the Islamic roots of Western civilization than simply expressing support for consensual government in the Middle East. So again, why?

Obama is not a classical liberal, but rather an illiberal multicultural relativist. In his way of thinking, all cultures are equal, and so are not to be judged by transcendent, timeless abstract values like freedom and liberty. These proclamations instead are “constructed” narratives offered up by Western chauvinists and do not take into consideration past imperialism, colonialism, and racism. Instead, equality of result — an enforced egalitarianism in the Marxist sense — is the multiculturalist creed. In such a warped world view, a Chavez or Castro who stifles freedom is not per se anti-democratic, because he does so to redistribute income, his beneficiaries being the “people,” his prey “them.”

96 Comments, 55 Threads

1.
S. Clark

How much of the world has “figured Obama out” may be a bit in doubt. But as the hours pass, I think that Mubarak and other leaders in the Middle East have taken the measure of Obama and his administration. All may yet be proven wrong, but at the moment it seems best described by Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin.

All people are equal, but all cultures are not. Something positive in Eqypt is Christians protecting Muslims from “pro-Mubarak” thugs. One has to wonder how many of these thugs are actually Muslim Brotherhood in disguise. A give-away is when they threaten to behead someone, as there have never been complaints in 30 years of Mubarak’s people beheading anybody. How can we get to the young people and instruct them to petition their government with their demands, so they have a concrete platform for reform? That is something we can do.

Do you have any such authority to defend that comment other than populist socialist rhetoric? People of all DIFFERENT mental and, physical abilities, ethnicity and religions can only be granted equal RIGHT’S and OPPORTUNITIES to some extent!

Whether you believe in a supreme creator or evolution, there is NO living matter of any species that is equal or the same. Even genetic engineering to date, cannot precisely duplicate sameness/equality. If equality is around the corner, I’m happy to be coming 82 this year and that equality isn’t around the [corner] for me. :)

The notion of equality really does indeed sidetrack so many issues and leaves an emptiness in so far as the distinction between equality of opportunity and equality of result is not made.

The two of course are very different and so often get ‘muddied’ together. At the core of multi-culturalism is this ‘muddiness’ where there is so much confusion in the end, the word equality becomes useless.

“Yale Professor: Egypt Proves George Bush Was Right
Wednesday, 02 Feb 2011 01:40 PM Article …
The protests in Egypt are proving that former President George Bush was right in his push for democracy in the Arab world, a leading Yale professor and best-selling author wrote Wednesday.

Stephen Carter, a left-leaning author, wrote in The Daily Beast that now it’s up to Obama to build on Bush’s legacy.

“Not long ago, President George W. Bush was considered naive for suggesting that the promotion of democracy in the Arab world should be a staple of American foreign policy,” Carter writes. “Two years ago, the same charge was whispered against President Barack Obama, when he suggested, in his Cairo address to the Muslim world, that self-government and freedom “are not just American ideas, they are human rights.””

Thought other readers might enjoy seeing this excerpt from Newmax.com from a left leaning Yale professor that aligns with Dr. VDH’s assertion of Bush’s possible legacy.

By the time this situation in Egypt ripens there won’t be any faction that trusts the US and most of them will hate us. Even if the Army manages to retain control of the government they will no longer trust us. In the end they’ll cut a deal with the Islamists.

And Obama loves the chaos in Eqypt. It continues his lucky roll since the election. First his tax cut. Then Tucson. What a timely opporunity for his brown shirts to bash his enemies while he remained so nobly above the fray. Now this delicious crisis in Egypt is pushing Health Care off the front pages. If his streak continues, there will be a full-blown uprising that will last for months or even a year, with Bush so obviously to blame for backing Mubarack for all those years. Bonus points: a near certainly of another Iran, and all Bush’s fault. What a godsend.

VDH: So, now we’ll have to figure out how to recover from whatever is happening now in the Middle East. Have to wonder how the next USA administration is going to deal with the upcoming batch of Islamist regimes that are going to spout. The Palestinians will overthrow the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and setup another Hamas or Hezbollah government, the Muslim Brotherhood will subvert whatever comes next in Egypt, Tunisia, Albania, and Algeria are all in play too. And, Obama will probably praise the results of all this turmoil as the will of the Islamists, the people.

We’ve used references to Munich quite often in recent years but will the analogy is not apt to the current situation, the result of a world turned into armed struggle might be apt.

Here is a picture from the Ivory Coast – it tells you all you need to know about Africa today – btw this is not by any means an indictment of black Americans, rather the distance between them (AND ALL OF US)and the old world and all of its horrors

This child is starving, his parents, his culture have failed him. Is this new? Been going on for centuries and not likely to change any time soon.

It is more likely that we will sink to their level the they will ever rise to hour level. They are brutally illiterate and are not likely to change, sad to say. We have fed and clothed them in our culture for ever and a day and they make little or no progress.

Actually, with obama in charge, we are rapidly sinking to their level and once there, will not recover. We will join the illiterates that put obama in.

VDH wrote: “Instead, equality of result—an enforced egalitarianism in the Marxist sense—is the multiculturalist creed. In such a warped world view, a Chavez or Castro who stifles freedom is not per se anti-democratic, because he does so to redistribute income, his beneficiaries being the “people”, his prey “them.’”

This, as has been noted, applies not just to foreign policy, but to domestic policy as well. It is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid the fact that the country is currently in the hands of a lawless tyranny, complete with state-run media. The tyrrants seek a certain amount of chaos (which they believe they can stage manage) to help them arrange the world to their liking. Also, they hope to overwhelm the forces of freedom, to paralyze us and neutralize our opposition. My sense however is that they miscalculated badly, and bit off more than they can chew. There will be chaos alright, but they do not have a strong hand here at home. So things will quite likely go badly for them. That is why they will play a double game: On the surface they will continue pushing their far-left, collectivist agenda, demonize their opponents while crying foul when we object etc. etc. But behind the scenes they will push hard for world chaos. They figure if they can’t get what they want, they can at least set the cause of world freedom as many decades back as they possibly can, in the hopes that we will never recover.

These people are about as insidious and destructive as it gets without resorting to overt police-state tactics. But their deliberate long term planning and deceit make them, well, in a word, evil.

Your view is mine, your insights more than worthwhile. I would even be happier if you would include some of the history lessons of civilizations past that point to these clowns now in power and what usually takes place as they play out their games of power, etc.

Thanks for being an active part of “telling it like it is” for millions of Americans.

Hopefully, Sarah Palin will bring you on board into her administration as an active voice of prudence, reason and foresight!

If Sarah Palin picks VDH as chief advisor she will be clever indeed. As for Mr. Obama, he hasn’t a clue. He has been brainwashed and propagandized by multicultral pap. He doesn’t even respect the contribution of Churchill to world freedom.

Once again, a heartfelt tip of the chapeau to Dr. Hanson in appreciation for his insight and clarity. The multicultural impulse has always been an intellectual dead end primarily advocated by those who confuse exotic food, dance and dress with “culture” and who have succumbed to that uniquely Anglo-Saxon phenomenon, Western guilt. This is inevitably accompanied by a relentless moral equivalence that makes (for example) America’s history of slavery uniquely evil while excusing the same historic practices in Africa or Asia. Even when some foreign (preferably non-Western) nation does something that is patently barbarous it is either ignored or blamed on the hidden hand of American policy.

This Orwellian schtick reached new heights in the “War Against Bush” where it became necessary to villify almost every aspect of American life in order to show how stupid the populace wss for electing Republicans. It was during these years that the Left finally revealed their contempt for concepts like liberty and human freedom and began to vigorously champion the view that such ideas are “relative” and depend on the “cultural context” of the peoples involved. The Left’s silence on the crushing repression of thugs like Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe is a prime example. There is also the Left’s growing (indeed obsequious) admiration of China as an example of how a non-elected elite can “get things done.” This has also taken on a domestic dimension as an increasing number of American “progressives” are increasingly attracted to public speech codes and other forms of censorship in order to promote a more “civil” society.

The French socialist Jean Francois Revel once observed “Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.” The multi-cultural project is intended to promote exactly this result.

chambers….enjoyed reading your perspective. However, there is a missing piece that the intellectual fail to address when addressing current American and foreign relations. What might that be?

If you were to sit down and have a serious analytical dialog with even the most “radical” labeled social and political activists along with common citizens of mature age around the world, you would discover something very interesting. They would tell you of their great admiration and even “love” for America in an era of its earlier generations. However, the learned and the common observant will tell you that post WWII, things began to change and accelerate post 60′s and 70′s. This is especially true for geopolitical meddling into most of the Middle East such as Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, etc., and parts of Asia, such as Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Philippines, and of course the USSR in Eastern Europe, etc.

Most of the evidence points to the creation of what is today the UN and its global vision at the hands of designated “enforcers” of which the U.S. willing agreed to be one of the appointed four. Over time the U.S. has become the sole and predominate propagator of the UN’s global vision assisted by the UK. Of course, with Russia and China having permanent seats on the security council and Russia one of the original designated four enforcers, the whole UN global vision strategy is not working so well…especially since Russia and China ally with so many of the targets regions and nations….so, we have a global mess to include here at home with the forces of socialist transformation taking place.

Bottom line is, America’s newer generations have lost their once held global credentials of social and political respect and trust in many regions around the world.

…NO, WE the people didn’t; the American “establishment” (both Dem and Rep) did, the so-called “elites.” It was the Bilderberg Group, the Council for Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and all their cronies that did it. They packaged, marketed, financed and advertized him. Their “press” pushed him. And they still do.

You’ve hit upon the EXACT point I’ve made for years in casual conversation. “Man does not live by bread alone.” Were I to be consigned/forced to live for the rest of my life in a foreign country and eat only its native cusine and the only choices given me were China, Mexico or England, and were I focused on food alone, I would unhesitatingly chose China as my first choice, followed by Mexico with England dead last. When other considerations come into play, however (things like freedom, the courts system, police, etc.,) England surges to the fore–despite the blandness of its national cuisine–a negative (from my pov) that I am more than willing to put up with in order to enjoy features of the English culture and politics I certainly hold more dear than the relative quality of mere bread alone.

As a general rule when eating in PRC . . . never ask what it is! If it taste good eat it . . . if it don’t taste good don’t eat it. Try what is on the table, eat what you like and NEVER eat all of the rice!!! Eating the rice is an insult to the cook/chef . . . for to eat all the rice says the rest of the food was bad and you had to fill up on rice, lol

If you ordered “sweet and sour pork” in China they would laugh you out of the restaurant, lol.

I am not British but I have heard many, many times in the past couple of decades that the dull British cuisine is a thing of the past and has been for quite some time. The large number of immigrants to Britain over the last few decades has brought thousands of restaurants with cuisine from all over the world into the British mainstream. As I understand it, the average Brit is at least as likely to enjoy curry or Chinese food as any of the old standbys like “bangers and mash” or “bubble and squeak”….

I rarely fail to learn something from Victor Hanson, but today I was really struck by these sentences: “Multiculturalism is a form of political and historical ignorance. The multiculturalist is an ahistorical fool, who confuses the cultural periphery with the core.” They just organized my own jumble of observations in a very succinct way. Many thanks.

Yes it’s Jimmy Carter + stupid + blind + naked and what shall the world reap as a reward for indulging in the fantasy and ideology of demons? Here’s hoping for a Sampson who after having his hair cut off by his deceptive Delilah and eyes poked out by his sworn enemies still managed by God to gather them all into one place and pull the house down on top of them all. Why shall the wicked prevail in anything but guaranteeing their self destruction? We see the path they are on but because of blindness they do not. When they feel confident in their numbers then they will attack en masse, driven by their hatred, lust and greed not realizing it is their end forever. Protect the innocent, Dear Lord.

ok we all want fair democracy. ( almost all anyway ..there are countless leftists/marxist /progressive like obama who want dictatorships that they control )

so for a country like egypt or tunisia to attain a fair and surviving democracy what do you need. and what do you have?

EGYPT need … and have

1) a culture that is tolerant of others ..race creed etc. DOESN’T HAVE

2) educated people ..widely educated not like islamic countries have. DOESN’T HAVE (THEY DO HAVE EDUCATED PEOPLE BUT NOT THE MASSES WHO HAVE BEEN INDOCTRINATED IN ISLAM NOT EDUCATED IN ISLAM)

3) leaders who care about the population (ACTUALLY I THINK MUBARAK CARES MORE THEN THE BROTHERHOOD, REGARDLESS NO LEADERSHIP THAT CARES IN THE WAY NEEDED)

4) no groups who actively seek to take full and undemocratic control. (SORRY THE MAIN AND PROBABLY NEXT GOVERNMENT …THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD ..ONE VOTE ONE TIME)

5) some level of stability and opportunity WASN’T THERE BEFORE THIS AND WILL NOT BE TOMORROW

6) strong international support for democracy. lol THIS IS THE BEST ONE NO !! THE USA IS BACKING THE RADICAL ELEMENT THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD MOST EVERYONE ELSE IS SILENT(yes they do say the want the violence to stop)

like many time before (third world governance and dictators) it isn’t easy to get out in front of these issues.

I will give Mubarak some support here because in the past (for a million reason) if he loosened his grip he would have been toppled sooner ..that is all. we in the west don’t get it.

the problems grow faster then the solutions. and now with a marxist as the POTUS it is too late.

why has unrest around the world increased …it is BECAUSE OF OBAMA AND HIS GOVERNANCE. HIS ECONOMIC POLICIES ARE HURTING THE ENTIRE WORLD NOT JUST AMERICANS. THE AMERICANS CAN HANDLE FOOD PRICES AND FUEL PRICES TO A DEGREE COUNTRIES LIKE TUNISIA AND EGYPT ..NOT A CHANCE THE WORKING POOR GET SCREWED BIG.

“but in Bush the world knew that there was substance behind his words. why did Libya drop their nuke program ..and why did Libya start antagonizing again.”

And Bush is why the Palestinians elected Hamas, a terrorist organization (an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood) in their 2006 parliamentary elections?

I would disagree with VDH to the extent that Western Values go flying out the window no matter who is in the White House or Congress when it comes keeping the shelves at Walmart stocked with cheap junk produced with cheap labor – and the tank filled with cheap petrol.

true ..there was less fear of Bush after the world more or less abandoned him and america after many bad moves in Iraq.

but I stand by my point about a strong vs weak american president.

also the Bush government did not bring the hamas into gaza. (they did push for elections which were supposed to happen anyway) they were a result of a supposed free vote which is now being forced onto egypt.

The chaos and violence that’s rocking the streets of Cario is rooted in the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt and the spread of Western values and ideas in that country for 200 years. It is the birth pangs of a new, free Democratic Egypt, a progressive development that could be hijacked in the short term by the regressive forces of radical Islam as has happened in Iran and elsewhere. That mustn’t happen, and Egypt’s current regime headed by the anti-Islamist Hosni Mubarak, dictator of thirty years, is determined to prevent it even if that means using violent and brutal force and alienating the Obama regime. And that is a good thing. We who want democratic change in the Middle East, who supported the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan (the overthrow of Saddam and the Taliban) and the Green Revolution in Iran, stand with Mubarak against Moslem and secular extremists.

The forces of radicalism now headed by Mohamed El Baradei threatened the use of violence if Mubarak didn’t resign and leave Egypt by Friday. A defiant Mubarak who is for an orderly constitutional transition to democracy via elections (with no interim government) refused to resign or leave. He made the concession of not seeking reelection and allowing elections in September to determine Egypt’s future. But that wasn’t good enough for the radical Mr. El Baradei and his reactionary Islamist allies (who are anti-democratic like their murdering brothers in Gaza) and want a full blown anti-Western Sharia state. THEY WANT POWER AND WANT IT NOW! And called for Mubarak’s overthrow and death. They want to replace the entire government, Parliament, constitution and all, with “a national unity government.” I explained the reason for this here . Under the existing constitution El Baradei is ineligible to run for the presidency (and the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood-rightly banned-cannot form a political party). El Baradei would need to head a political party for at least one year-he doesn’t head any party and elections are seven months away. Understandably El Baradei and the very dangerous jihadist Brotherhood are in a hurry to seize power in Egypt; and Mubarak (God bless him) is willing to fight them to the death to prevent that. He did this before with the Brotherhood-who he almost bludgeoned to death-and will do so again. It’s either Mubarak’s way to a democratic future or the highway-Obama and ElBaradei be damned. And that’s where we are.

Seeing that violence was coming his way-he rightly takes El Baradei’s and the Moslem Brother’s threats seriously-Mubarak struck the first blow hitting the protestor’s preemptively with pro-government forces as the army looked on. The best defense is a good offense and Mubarak rightly took the initiative. If El Baradei and the Islamists (whose ranks are being swelled by outside forces: Hamas, Hezbollah, etc.) want power on their evil, regressive, supremacist terms then they’ll have to take up arms and fight for it-fight for their radical medieval future, fight for their prophet and Islam, fight for oppression and totalitarianism. There is no middle way here. No room for compromise. No concessions to radical Islam. This is a war to the death for the fate of Egypt. And in this war I STAND WITH MUBARAK!

Today http://www.worldnetdaily.com has run a piece showing Obama’s complicity in supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt while calling for a 30-year US ally to step down from office. British newspapers are printing stories of an Egyptian radical supported by the US State Department traveling to the US to learn revolution and returning to Egypt to implement it. Obama met with the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 2009 and has called for the MB to be part of a new Egyptian government. The Mubarak government says Obama has been involved in trying to overthrow the regime. None of these activities serve US foreign policy interests, but rather suggest that Obama is a traitor to the US and should be impeached. I have written my senators asking for a congressional investigation of this entire affair with an emphasis on Obama administration ties to and contacts with the Muslim brotherhood in the US and around the world.

Yawn. I’m not sure why it’s difficult for PJM authors to understand that double-quotation mark (“) should mainly be used for quoting statements that people have actually said. Show me an article with lots of scare quotes, no real quotations, and no supporting links, and I’ll show you an illogical rant with no relation to actual journalism.

Of course anyone who thinks the West and in particular the US is not exceptional and worthy of preserving should not be president of the US. How can such a person adequately serve in the office and meet the constitutional demands of the oath. How can anyone with a value system in opposition to that of the US meet the expectations of the people being represented. Answer: True representation cannot exist with such a person.

VDH, I see what you see…but, your senses tell you one thing and mine tell me another.

I don’t see “multi” culturalism as the end game for these leftists. As you so accurately point out, there are an array of items from the “other” cultural menus that are conveniently rubbed out of the cafeteria lineup.

Instead, what leftists seem to be doing is worshiping at the altar of anti-culturalism or forming the acultural revolution.

In this movement, any “opposite” of Western culture is glorified. Any opponent, dissident, enemy or resistor to Western culture is championed. The mere positioning of oneself as an alternative proponent is enough. In this vein, the Aculturalist Revolutionary does not have to adopt your Sharia law internally, or your prosecution of gays, or your hatred of Jews or your stoning of women. It ignores those inconveniences while exalting your “general anti-Western culture” philosophy.

To the Acultural Revolutionary “multi” culture makes a nice prop. But, there is no one goal, one ideology, one map to the end game. It is not building toward anything, it is destroying something. By any means necessary.

The reason the NYTimes and other lapdog media outlets continue on a path of self-destruction, bleating out the anti-Western culture message, in a fiscal death spiral, is because the race to destroying Western culture before being destroyed themselves is a calculated and acceptable risk/reward game.

Unlike radical Islam, which has an identifiable goal of building a Sharia-culture world, and Marxism had a goal of building a socialist/communist culture world…the Acultural Revolutionary wants to pick and choose from among the anti-Western ideologies and then just see what happens when it all shakes out.

The reason that leftists can champion mass murderers, brutal dictators, liars, thieves, and cretins of every order…is because Che, Mao, Stalin, Chavez, Castro…were anti-Western.
They serve the ONLY purpose at hand for leftists. Tear down the fabric of Western society….again…by any means necessary.

Once we come to realize and accept that the end game is not the building of something else…only the tearing down of free market democracy, we can appreciate how and why the apparent hypocrisy crops up time after time.

The sole aim, the entire goal…is to destroy the American way of life, its cultural “norms” and any state modeled after it…and ALL who are most likely to try to defend it.

Ergo, the attack on Christians, the Southern white male, the military, Israel, parts of Western Europe, Poland, the Baltics, Columbia, ….whomever.

The trick to this while running the government, is to look like one is defending it…while one is actually putting the pieces in place to destroy it…everywhere around the globe…most especially, of course…here at home.

Overload the economy with unsustainable debt, diminish our standing with allies across the globe, dismantle our NASA creativity and inventions, build a weather hoax to shelve our natural resources, apologize to the world for our unseemly existence.

No, my dear cyberfriend…it’s not the layering of the coat of many colors…multi-culturalism… that confronts us…it’s the murdering of the culture we have in a death by a thousand cuts.

And, er, he wants to get re-elected. You are overthinking this, and are just ignoring all the stuff he says about supporting small business, the American way. etc because it does not suit your conspiracy theory. Would you now at least acknowledge that there is a widening gap between Obama and the radical left? If you won’t admit that, then you are a hopeless ideologue.

I will stop being a hopeless ideologue after you cease being a mindless apologist.

Are we done with the insults.

Read Stanley Kurtz’s book Radical-In-Chief from cover to cover, sit through his sessions with Peter Robinson on National Review Online, go back through everything he said during his first two years…and then tell us why you believe ALL of that should be ignored based upon the soothing words he uses to fool the ear of those who are inclined to be suckered.

He has ALWAYS taken the stealth approach and has often been at odds with those who want to throw down the gauntlet and start the revolution out in the open.

That is a matter of separation in tactics, not in ideology.

He much prefers to get the camel’s nose under the tent….and then nudge more and more and more into it, until it is a monumental task to remove. The “conspiracy theory” is based upon the open discussion of how to go about this by the very people he surrounds himself with, today…and for the whole of his life.

I like the way you have brought out the self-contradictions in the liberal mentality that resides on the political Left, our underlying bureaucracies and middle class revolutionaries.

The politically correct want to support the woman who sues after spilling hot coffee on herself but hates the so-called “tort reforms” that support engendered.

Illegal immigrants march through our cities waving Mexican flags but will not live in the country they are so proud of.

One could go on and on. The bottom line is that European Americans are always on the wrong side of anything. The Third World and minorities that are seemingly eternally oppressed and offended that clamor about equality have no problem with denying that “core” European value system while reaping the very benefits that core has produced for them and they cannot reproduce for themselves.

They are in a very real sense caught in the perceptual trap of disbelieving intellectually what they actually emphatically believe in which is shown by their actions.

Were this not true Algerians would leave France and go to Algeria and say, “Hey! No problem. We can make a nice country like France right here in Algeria.” This will not happen because it is an affirmative action world, based on misguided notions that a good man can in fact be kept down whereas the European cultural notion of empiricism says that equality is as equality does; there is no room for the idea that I would be equal if not for you.

The problem with the new version of 79-80 is that at that time America was ready to get over the self-imposed and guilt ridden era started over Vietnam and embrace the idea of liking ourselves once again which we were snapped out of in part by the Iran hostage crisis.

In a country where more of the population dislikes the story of America than ever before in it’s history, there will be no “morning in America” this time around as patriotism is considered a quaint idea to reside on the bookshelf next to H.G. Wells’ “The Time Machine”.

The giant dichotomy in the room is that the very people whose value systems enable success are in fact considered the biggest failure in America. This is called killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

You effectively describe on powerful strand of American culture, but overstate the case. The hard economic times are making the center take a harder look at how economic success is achieved and they are clearly less utopian than they might have been even five years ago.
But when part of those at least nominally linked to our economic success, the Goldman Sachs to Lehman Brothers crew and cronies, the smartest guys in the room crowd, are pulling off what they are pulling off, the picture gets more muddled.
As for “patriotism,” we were plenty patriotic after 9/11, but GWB spent his patriotism dividend; whether wisely, or not, remains to be seen.
From my small space, it seems that events have a way of confounding the absolute stands of either the left or the right. The current Egyptian crisis would be Exhibit A. We will muddle through. What else is there to do?
Hell, some people are still brooding that we did not use nukes on North Vietnam. Vietnam, disastrous as it was, played out in one direction here at home, and another in SE Asia, where China was invading Vietnam within a few years and not long after that we were producing a lot of our stuff in both countries.
Describing the villainy on the other sides creates a narrative in which if only that villainy could be overcome, peace and prosperity would reign. Somehow that never happens for more than a short period of time.

PATRIOTISM is NOT a moment of [emotional] unity! PATRIOTISM is the very individual fabric..the DNA of common values that bind a society together to accomplish common objectives. Traditional American patriotism has so many tenants to its foundation of which no longer exist within the majority today….a product in large part, transitioning from a unitized society to an individualist transient society.

Patriotism today, is measured having achieved qualification for a government redistributed handout or other special entitlement…rather than what one can do in accordance with the abilities given him by his creator for the benefit of sustaining his family and his country…life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness among many others.

Todays generations haven’t a clue what Traditional American Patriotism was/is.

Merkel has declared already that multiculturism has failed, and she isn’t the deep social theorist that the author of this article is, just a reality based politician. So, we here in the US are kind of late to the party.

But this isn’t the main issue here in so far as the US and the Middle East is concerned. As is the case with our discontent in our relations with China, we nonetheless recognize that we should take care of our economic affairs and put our house in order first, before we say anything about the Chinese communists and how they use either our bonds that they hold or their currency, the same goes with the Middle East and us: we should put our political structure in order first, and then make pronouncements about Egypt, its political structure and possible futures, and what we might like those futures to look like.

Our political structure is in deep crisis: we have as President someone that about 100 million Americans doubt he’s a natural born citizen, and in fact doubt if he’s an American. The majority of people don’t know for sure if he habitually lies or not, if he’s a Christian an atheist or a muslim, and whether he has America’s interests at heart or wants to “fundamentally transform” America to something unrecognizable by 2008 standards.

That’s our problem, and unless we resolve this issue, and rather quickly I might add, all talk about the Middle East is just that, talk.

Wow! Two reasonable paragraphs followed by a really wacky one. Well done, sir. Did not see that coming…but it’s still wacky, unless you are making the point that there are 100 million extremists in our culture vs. 30+ million extremists in Egypt.

Dwight…..I suspect the “whacky comment” represents recent polling combining the measures of the “don’t believer’s” with the “don’t know/not sure” folks. Since there has been a “concerted” and successful effort to deny public access to “original source” documents concerning birth and education, both [directly relevant] to birth claims and birth rights, I doubt that would qualify those citizens with concerns as being radicals. Just saying…I don’t know many citizens who would go to such lengths and legal battles to keep our original birth certificates and education documents secret. My first grandchild was born on the Island of Oahu 4 days before Obama and we have a “copy” of the original birth certificate and the State holds the original….not even sure when this new certificate of birth thing come about over there.

Anyway, I’m not among the radicals you speak of but, its interesting how much effort there has been and continues to be towards keeping simple commonplace records sequestered from the public.

Cameron is joining in. Interesting that he is reportedly doing this (according to the NYT) at least in part because the US is worried that rising Islamic extremism in the UK (both “homegrown” and immigrant varieties) is a threat to the US.

And thankfully, we are actually not ‘late to the party’ in terms of dealing with radical Islam within our own population, at least not in comparison with Europe. Muslims represent a much larger portion of the population of Europe than of our population, and Muslims in the US are on the whole better integrated into the larger population.

What’s going on in the Middle East and the Multicultural Nightmare is this: an atavistic return to the practice of mass human sacrifice, offerings to the false Moloch of Peace, with the Jews of Israel as its designated victims.

In this regard, Dr. Hanson is correct when he says “the world has figured Obama out.” Unfortunately, it likes what it sees, it has Israel in its sights, and is ready for the kill.

“It is going to be a long two years. . . . and the wages of our version of 1979-80 are coming due.” Exactly, and what will America’s voters do this time around, I wonder?

Thank God for the Internet where the truth can be spoken freely and refreshingly and all manner of responses can be freely expressed as well. Not so in the M-E and in China even any reference to Egypt is censored. You nailed it again, VDH.

Without bullets and $billions and the noble sacrifice of our heroes blood when necessary, An Internet and Radio Free World needs to beam the truth and keep the light of freedom and liberty aloft. Not only beamed to within nations with oppressive totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, but also beamed among the quieted, controlled, compliant, “serfs” in the statist socialist nations.

The latter includes the lefts’ comprehensive effort to drive our nation of freedom and liberty down “the road to” a compliant, controlled, statist “serfdom.”

As far as a transitional leader is necessary, Jalal Talabani, Iraq’s democratically elected president could fill that position and create an acceptable transition to elections for the Egyptian people.
He has demonstrated his expertise at working with both the Sunni and Shia sects and can aid the nation in it’s transition to Democracy, if that’s what they really are determined to implement.
Yea, yea; I know. He’s not going to make everybody happy. But, in reality, no one will anyway.

As usual, all I can think to say after reading a VDH article is THANK YOU! There are several people in my life who consider themselves to be “liberals” (including my parents) who get mad whenever I share one of VDH’s articles. They don’t get mad just because they don’t like what he says…but because they’ve never been able to successfully refute what he says. That’s because they CAN’T refute what he says. And that makes me smile!

I think Dr. Hanson incorrectly gives Obama credit for having a thought-out system labeled “multiculturalism.” I believe that Obama is just a knee-jerk anti-American, anti-British, anti-Jewish, anti-capitalism ignoramus who hasn’t learned or matured intellectually since his teens. Obama thinks like and acts like the typical left-wing college sophomore of the 1970s who was against most things American (such as Western morality, representative democracy, free market capitalism, private property, and the rights of individuals) and in favor of communist or socialist dictatorships, marxism, equality of outcomes, and state ownership of everything (except his steroe system and his “stash”). There are some times when Obama acts differently: when he is behaving like a thuggish Chicago pol.

I don’t think VDH says that Obama has a deeply thought out intellectual system. On the contrary, he shows that Mr. Obama is the product of superficial anti-intellectual New Left Marxist Multicultural propaganda.

He doesn’t “think” like an American for one simple reason…. he isn’t one. He doesn’t think in terms of American know-how and individualism that made this country great. He doesn’t share our love of God, honor, pride in America. He doesn’t understand our fine military and the bravery of our soldiers throughout our history.
He eshchews capitalism, but has no problem spending our money on himself and his family on vacations and unnecessary trips abroad. Like most communist leaders he lives well while taking the money from the pockets of the people. Much like his pastor Wright who dammned America, while buying himself a million dollar home in a very nice neighborhood. Hypocrites all!

Does anyone remember that B. Hussein Obama had secret meetings with the Muslim Brotherhood as early as 2008?
It’s plain to see why Obama will not take a stand in Egypt, since he personally condones the uprising.
And he’ll relish in the result.

VDH, while I agree with your assessment of multiculturalism, with all due respect you seem way too lenient on Bush. His Second Inaugural Address contains little if any awareness of the limits of American power.

That power is being reduced by the Great Recession which, although it is being mishandled by Obama, started on Bush’s watch.

“Obama is not a classical liberal, but rather an illiberal multicultural relativist. In his way of thinking, all cultures are equal, and so are not to be judged by transcendent, timeless abstract values like freedom and liberty.”

Do you think the country deserves a sane President starting in 2012? Any idea as to who he or she might be?

The problem with Bush’s freedom agenda is that he didn’t start pursuing it until his second term and it was easily twisted into some sort of de facto justification for going to war in Iraq.

I think Obama may very well believe in American exceptionalism and the importance of our constitutional principles and all the rest of it. I also think he believes that much of the rest of the world doesn’t believe in it, or not everywhere and not all the time, and that the best way to reach those who don’t believe in it is to be humble and apologetic and avoid any sort of bullying superpower kind of behavior. (He’s finding out how well that works right about now.) But mostly I think he believes in the power of his personal story as a source of great wisdom and insight, both for himself and for everyone else.

I, too, agree with VDH’s assessment of phony baloney psuedo intellectual New Left Marxist Multiculturalism. It is really more propaganda than an intellectual system. But you are right that Mr. Bush has his weaknesses -we see this is his “New Nativism” comments- which shows he too is under the influence of Liberal speech writers and Washington Beltway Internationalist Ivy League types. However, one has to give Mr. Bush credit for having a strong and determined foreign policy which kept us safe. But we must say that Bush may have overheated the American economic system in part because as you say he too, like Mr. Obama seemed to have lacked the wisdom to understand the limits of American power.

In his way of thinking, all cultures are equal, and so are not to be judged by transcendent, timeless abstract values like freedom and liberty.

until someone criticizes that other culture for the way it treats women, homosexuals etc., and then one is told that in this multiculty society one must respect the diversity of thought and reasoning, and so the other culture’s way of seeing things.
The resounding hypocrisy boggles the mind.

The most bizarre aspect of multiculturalism is that it is uncomfortable with statements like the following: A BELIEF SYSTEM WHICH CALLS FOR THE DEATH OF THOSE WHO CHOSE NOT TO PARTICIPATE IT IS BAD. What American can in all seriousness debate that statement?

VDH exaggerates to make a point. Obama has been careful to stay closer to the middle than you would ever know from reading VDH. As I recall, the State of the Union speech just a few days ago contained plenty of references to what makes America great and things to be preserved.

I hope VDH’s apparent optimism about the results of a democratic process in Egypt pan out. I had doubts that such would work in Iraq, and as GWB acknowledges, it is still to early to tell.

I have an Egyptian-American acquaintance who claims that there are one million people demonstrating against Mubarak, but that there are eleven million who favor him. Of course, since her family is among that alleged 11 million, I would not take her analysis to the bank.

I do think that Obama should make a statement “warning” Egyptians about what is likely to happen to their freedoms, should they go the way of Iran and talk about how the protesters there, finally were squelched. This may be the time to finally speak out in support of the protesters in Iran, whereas earlier, I could see the wisdom in not contributing to a backlash against them.

According to what I have read in recent days, Egyptians are well aware that they get big $$$ from the Americans. Peasants who live far from the city get bread. They are afraid that the rise of an anti-American government would mean no food. These people are not demonstrating because they live too far away, which may indeed result in a skewed impression of what the majority of Egyptians think.

I well remember in the early 60’s, when coming aware of the world’s political problems as a twenty-something, the war all those mean old baddies in the Middle East waged on tiny Israel.

Naïve me, looking at a map and counting the hundreds of millions of people against, what, 5 million Jews, figured it was all over but the shouting.

So, it was a huge surprise when Israel won.

Imagine that Egypt AND all the other “counties” in the ME currently in play do go the way of Iran. Could even Saudi Arabia be the next domino to fall, so that INDEED a true caliphate is set up in that area?

Yes—let Mohammed rule that benighted area of the earth, albeit with Israel holding out.

At least, THEN, the correlation of forces would be clear for ALL to see!

You can bet that this outcome would wake up a vast majority of still-free people in the West, so that suicidal policies now regnant would be dropped.

I picture Israel, the canary in the cold mine of do or die, like a fort in the American West, back in the day of our Manifest Destiny, when pioneers bravely moved to the Pacific coast.

Instead of a wooden wall, though, these days picture that tiny democracy with a boundary that has “guns” pointing out, so that any invaders would be wiped out, if they even tried to attack. The arsenal of democracy, the USA, must keep Israel locked and loaded, so that if needed, a “wall of bullets” could sweep out any invaders too close for comfort.

Maybe unwittingly, or subconsciously, the most ruthless Muslim Brotherhood types are definitely picking a fight with the USA, because it seems like that will be the fastest way for the latter to finally beat them to a worthless pulp, so they can at last gain from LOSING to us, and enter the modern era.

“Who Knows” – you are on to something here. These folks have the right to self determination. We’ve certainly fought the battles in this country, they must figure it out for themselves without outside intervention. If the Egyptians don’t take a stand against the radicals they risk putting themselves at great peril. Hopefully most understand threatening Israel and the US is not in their best interest. Maybe they’ve read “Carnage and Culture” too.

STATEMENT: “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.” – speech before AIPAC, June 4, 2008

EXPIRATION DATE: June 6, 2008: “Jerusalem is a final-status issue, which means it has to be negotiated between the two parties” as part of “an agreement that they both can live with.” – an Obama adviser clarifying his remarks to the Jerusalem Post.

Is the United States entering a new era of Isolationism? As we become more and more disconnected from the world socio-political area are we really the motive force in building our own wall? The instant communications that exist today surely causes instant reactions . . . walls built today are not of bricks . . . or curtains of iron . . . the wall of today is a cyberwall. Is not just the recognition that we are in a no win situation, that there is nothing we can do that is positive for everyone? Best for the individual? Best for the group? Best for the nation? Best for the earth? All are barriers over which the communications systems of today has the overriding power.

Bush campaigned as a multiculturalist saying the replacement of English with Spanish was a good thing. He governed as a multiculturalist, a major factor in the minority mortgage meltdown that led to the current economic crisis. He is still talking like a multiculturalist insulting opponents of illegal immigration. Only a partisan hack could claim Bush was not a hardline multiculturalist.

As long as truth and justice are rooted in eternity, and there are
people who simply will not go along with that; the battle described by Cahill in “The Gifts of the Jews” in the showdown between Moshe and Pharaoh, continues.

My one complaint is that someone as erudite as yourself, particularly someone trained as a philologist, should not constantly mispronounce the common Latin phrase ‘et cetera’. You always say “eck sedera”. It is pronounced “et setera”, as you should know. You also pronounce ‘nuclear’ as “nukyuler”, which is similarly cringeworthy.

I hope that incredibly edifying criticism was clear, since I can’t input IPA symbols into this comment field.

This initial limited comment will possibly lead to somewhat more substantial contributions in future.

I’m sure we all appreciate your thoughtful ANALysis of VDH’s pronunciation of 2-3 words out of the countless thousands of words he uses in any given lecture. You really do add so much to the discussion. I just had to offer you a few words of thanks.

The issue for me is still what a man with such underdeveloped American cultural roots is doing running this country?

The answer is that our “Ruling Class” educational and professional political system has failed us. If that system allows a man as ignorant and benighted by ideology as Obama to get to such a position, with so little political experience and no paper trail whatsoever, then it must be radically reformed. Only the People will impose such reform. We should be in the streets ourselves.

["Obama is not a classical liberal, but rather an illiberal multicultural relativist. In his way of thinking, all cultures are equal, and so are not to be judged by transcendent, timeless abstract values like freedom and liberty."]

Yes, that certainly is factual! However, that is exactly the underlying global vision of the UN, and other globalist organizations in which several Presidents, their administrations and careers have succumbed to….some in blind ignorance and other including Obama, not at all blind.

I don’t know why anybody would label Obama as a “Liberal” in any sense of definition! He is a traditional socialist with “convenience” leanings of Democratic, capitalist socialism….an intermediate strategy of socialist transformation.

‘To the degree he feels comfortable “imposing our values” and taking a stand..’

Professor, I would REALLY like to see where Obama ‘took a stand’ on ANYTHING.

-Perhaps it was his professing he would use public monies for his ’08 election, but then.. no.
-Wait, Obama ‘taking a stand’ against ‘special interests/lobbyists’ and Wall Street, yet wasn’t it Obama who benefited most from said groups in ’04, ’08 and his party’s ’10 election?
-Perhaps it was his promise of closing GTMO.. no.
-I got it, Obama speaking of our country’s, ‘broken immigration system’ – no. Wasn’t it he and Holder who didn’t allow the overwhelmingly supported SB 1070 to be implemented to its fullest, even though it’s nearly verbatim of the Federal immigration law.
-Or maybe it was Obama talking of ‘fiscal restraint’..no. For no ‘ENTITLEMENTS’ are cut in the recent annual budget.
-Mandated health insurance aired on C-SPAN.. nope.
-How ’bout them numerous recess appointments he deemed ‘damaged goods’.
-Need we mention the ‘no tax increase for a couple earning more than 250k’ B S?
-The ONLY item Obama takes a stand on is the fictitious statement of ‘Obamacare saving money..’ fairy tale.

Obama’s, ‘taken a stand’ on nothing. The man has no scrupels, ethics or credo. Much like authoritarians of dictators past.

He’s an unsure, thin-skinned faux intellect. Still astounded, saddened people were duped by him.

I just took a class in “Multicultural Awareness.” According to the text, we are to believe that ALL cultures are equal… and there’s no such thing as Radical Islam (instead, it’s called “orthodox” Islam).

We must SPEAK UP–to instructors, classmates, and textbook authors who peddle crap. Dangerously uninformed Americans are no more than sitting ducks.

VDH says it best: “Where did multiculturalism come from? It is a bastard child of Marxism, of course, inasmuch as it is anti-capitalist and judges left-wing or pseudo-left-wing totalitarians far less harshly than right-wing authoritarians” (ESPECIALLY CHRISTIANS, BUT I DIGRESS)… “It is also a byproduct of Western affluence, WHICH ALONE PROVIDED THE MARGIN OF SAFETY AND AFFLUENCE TO INDULGE IN FANTASIES.” Amen!!!

VDH should be writing textbooks, not the deluded academic hacks who wishfully (or purposely) whitewashed dark truths in the text I just slogged through. Thank you VDH!!!

Dr Hanson, I genuinely do not understand the thrust of this column. I’ve never before heard multi-culturalism connected to Marx. As I understand it, Marx wrote and spoke of humans as if they were the same everywhere, and cultural differences never entered into his thought. Economic differences were all that mattered to him. To my eye, multi-culturalism is perhaps the only aspect of modern liberalism which is not derived ultimately from the late-1800s socialists. It has very different roots: it grew out of the hatred of nationalism that took hold in postwar Europe. That anti-nationalism quickly became anti-colonialism, which argued that native cultures were valuable in their own right and it was morally wrong to _force_ natives to accept Western rules and Western culture. As usual, though, the liberals were overzealous, and before anyone realized it their position had morphed into “every culture has value except our own” — that is, the modern West. How is this position Marxist?

Democracy does not come from street riots. The US won its representative government not at Lexington, Concord, Saratoga, Cowpens or Yorktown but in 1789 at Philapelphia. War and guns in most cases leads to Henry VII over Richard III, William the Conqueror over Harold, Bonaparte over the Bourbons and back, Lenin and Stalin over Nicholas and Alexandria, Mao over Chiang Kai Chek. The US was different because a three month ocean trip and 150 years separated the Merchant ruling class of the New World from the political aristocracy which controlled Europe. Cromwell’s revolution died in England in 1660, reforming thereafter in 1688 and 1830, etc. but with the merchant farmers being left alone to open our continent and fight off the natives, the Cromwell revolution never died here, and served as the basis for 1789. It worked here, a confluence of events that will not be repeated in Egypt without help from the military successors of Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Hamilton. Bush provided it to the Iraqis and democracy has a chance. Obama will withold it from the Iranians and Egyptians and so they can just say goodbye to the old boss and hello to the new boss. Move along. Nothing new to see here.

Bush is the balm of our time. The left applies it liberally to assuage the sting of their actions. It soothes the conscience of the right when we spend too much time navel-gazing. Our nature is to blame and second-guess leaders. Our challenge is to overcome our nature. Last I checked, we still live in a country that gives us the personal freedoms to exercise our gifts. If we do that, we can achieve our individual dreams in spite of our circumstances. The bogeyman cannot prevail over these things.

“Where did multiculturalism come from? It is a bastard child of Marxism, of course, inasmuch as it is anti-capitalist and judges left-wing or pseudo-left-wing totalitarians far less harshly than right-wing authoritarians (e.g., Obama is more sympathetic to the crowds in Cairo than he was to those in Teheran).”

So your argument is that “multiculturalism” is a distinct worldview that always encompasses these traits? A multiculturalist is always sympathetic to leftist dictators adn anti-capitalist? Really? What do you base this on? Multiculturalism is a broad concept with numerous meanings and applications in contemporary nation stats, and can hardly be reduced to “a bastard child a Marxism”–whatever that’s supposed to mean. As one other comment points out above, your link to marxism here is also a little strange. Where do you get that from? Or are you just using the term because of its cache as a pejorative political term? I don’t see where you’re getting the connection to marxism, at all. It seems that you are just trying to attach “multiculturalism” to other political positions that you disagree with.

“Finally, multiculturalism is a form of political and historical ignorance. The multiculturalist is an ahistorical fool, who confuses the cultural periphery with the core.”

This is another perplexing claim. First, there isn’t just one way in which people understand or employ multiculturalism–in the US or elsewhere. You act as if there is there is just one way in which people understand this concept. Sorry, but you’re completely off base there. Second, how is it “ahistorical” to take account of the diverse groups who have taken part in, for example, the history of the United States? What method do you use to determine the supposed “cultural core” of the US from the “periphery”?

Overall, your post takes one broad concept–multiculturalism–and completely butchers it by making all sorts of assumptions, omissions, and proclamations that aren’t all that founded in history (let alone reality). Basically, you are conflating “multiculturalism” with certain political positions that you disagree with, and that’s about it. Good enough for Pajamas Media, I suppose, but hardly convincing for this reader.